It's simple to start a war, common to win battles, but difficult and rare to complete a war with one's objectives achieved.

This crucial final step ought to be about as simple as the second according to Clausewitzian military theory: All you need to do is win big enough or many enough battles to 'disarm' your opponent (to deny your opponent the ability to resist). A disarmed power yields to your will--that's what the theory implies.

There are several exceptions to this rule which turned all-too many conflicts even messier than anticipated. One such exception has gained a lot of attention in the last about ten years: The opponent could devolve into a lesser state of organization and persist (as a guerilla force, for example). The opposing power might even avoid disarmament by becoming elusive and by keeping the intensity of warfare at a level which doesn't exceed its ability to regenerate its potential for violence: A conflict cooled down just enough to sustain the refusal of offered conditions.

There's a different and historically very powerful case; some wars are fought over a distance which doesn't allow the initially-superior power to force a decision. The despair of non-nomadic invaders of Russia comes to mind. Imperial Japan faced a similar difficulty in its war planning. It did defeat Russia in 1905, but probably only because Russia was politically unstable and at the brink of a thorough revolution. This kept Russia from continuing the land war with a hastened completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Later on, Imperial Japan faced the dilemma that it couldn't possibly bring the US, UK or France to their knees. Even the loss of Singapore was but a small scratch inflicted on the British Empire, and even the British shipyards in isolation would have been able to compensate for a lost “decisive” battle within three to four years. The French could have ignored the loss of Indochina and French Polynesia for decades without agreeing to peace. The US could have ignored the loss of the Philippines and rebuild its fleet in three-year intervals completely.

A Mahanian focus on decisive naval battles, reinforced by the memory of the Battle in the Tsushima Strait, was the Japanese' mental escape from this Sword of Damocles. The Clausewitzian view treats a major victory in a battle of great army concentration (and by theoretical extension, its naval equivalent) as disarming and war-winning because this was true for the relatively small and neighboring powers in Europe. The stubbornness of the people of Spain under the Napoleonic occupation and the ability of the Russians to sacrifice vast areas of land including their biggest city without yielding should have signaled the very limited validity of this view from the very beginning.

The difficulty in reaching a satisfactory completion of war by defeating the enemy's military might coined the 20th century: The British Empire refused to accept defeat because, though inferior on land and in the air, it was able to avert an invasion of England. The asymmetry between a land-centric power and a naval-centric power precluded the Clausewitzian decisive clash of Schwerpunkt forces vs. Schwerpunkt forces and thus a Clausewitzian completion of the war.

Guerillas all over the world followed the Spanish example of averting final defeat and survived as political movements even if temporarily disarmed, rarely ceasing resistance entirely.

And then there's another completion of war, without a decisive battle (though some scholars will stretch the meaning of Schwerpunkt beyond recognition to cover this case): The strategic coup de main, which often precluded a major war with its fait accompli: Often times it's simply not worth or promising enough to wage war when the other power has already grabbed what it wanted.

The Shiites and Sunni of Iraq dealt the real decision of the recent Iraq war by the fait accompli of ethnic cleansing and majority rule, while Americans were being fed stories about harassing attacks with mines that had no real bearing on the outcome:

Such a demographic change will likely last for centuries, whereas the question whether the harassment of convoys with the mine campaign was defeated or not is inconsequential in Iraq today already.

The completion of war after a fait accompli is typically found once some face-saving exit is being left open by the "winner" or created by the loser through sheer narrative manipulation. The recent conflict about the Crimea shows the power of the coup de main and its achievement of a fait accompli: The Ukrainian military wasn't disarmed or incapable of continued resistance; it hadn't even completed gearing up by the time the Ukraine de facto accepted the loss of the Crimea to Russia since reconquest or intervention of the UNSC was out of question.

It is notable that much of the (largely unsuccessful) Western interventionism, such as cruise missile diplomacy, bombings, assassination drone campaigns, military assistance programs and no-fly zones was devoid of a decisive battle, fait accompli or offering the enemy a face-saving exit.

It's no wonder Western scholars of military affairs are bemoaning the difficulty of “successfully” completing a war: The West is thoroughly incompetent at it, while others aren't.

This is something even gold-plated combat aircraft, multi-billion dollar warships, nuclear weapons, UNSC veto powers and the heaviest infantry of the world cannot change.

Sven Ortmann is a German blogger. Since 2007, his blog, “Defence and Freedom,” has covered a range of military, defence policy and economic topics, with more than a million page views. His personal military background is his service in the Luftwaffe. He has guest-blogged at the Small Wars Journal Blog and other blogs on military topics.

Last week, I asked, “Did we consider the opportunity costs of the first Iraq War?” The answer was, “No.”

But I limited myself to only considering the opportunity costs of spending our “war capital”, the vague combination of American morale/enthusiasm for war. When we go to war we also spend real financial capital. War costs money. And that money has opportunity costs of its own.

How did it get so high? Well, every aircraft carrier costs millions to operate in a war posture. Every deployed soldier costs tens of thousands of dollars. Every contractor costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Every cruise missile costs tens of thousands of dollars. Every plane in the sky requires extra maintenance. This totals out to nearly $300,000 for every hour were at war with ISIS.

And America might spend billions more to defeat ISIS. As I referenced last week, fiscally conservative Republicans suddenly become drunken soldiers at the strip club when it comes to fighting wars. So we need to have a conversation about opportunity costs. Here are my biggest candidates for how America could have spent a billion dollars instead of fighting ISIS.

Finally, a caveat: I only wanted to think about foreign policy spending, because frankly, we’d be here all day if we wrote about ways military spending could be converted into domestic spending. (Vaccinations, infrastructure, and so on.)

Paying Down the Debt

Somehow, when it comes to federal spending, wars and military spending don’t seem to count. Famously, the first war in Iraq was the first time America went to war and lowered taxes instead of raising them. As Eric C wrote in his comment on last Monday’s post, in 2008, whenever Republicans accused Democrats of raising the debt with proposed stimulus programs, all he could think about was constantly increasing defense spending, intelligence spending increases after 9/11, and the ginormous cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, without a dime raised in taxes to cover these costs.

An opportunity cost of the first Iraq war, in monetary terms, was not saving money for stimulus in case the economy crashed. Which happened five years after the first war started.

How much have the post 9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries cost so far? At least $1.5 trillion, according to James Fallows. According to Linda J. Bilmes, the price tag could reach up to $4 to 6 trillion, factoring in associated military costs and veteran's benefits.

But we shouldn’t live in the past. Let’s look to the future. And the very simple calculation every politician should make is whether it is more important for America to pay down its debt (now and in the future) or to fight another war in the Middle East. Maybe the current billion dollar price tag won’t break the bank, but it would help.

Leading the World in the Sustainable Development Goals

Later this year, the U.N. will replace the Millenium Development Goals--that were moderately successful--with the Sustainable Development Goals. The U.S. could really cement its leadership of the world by vowing to spend 1.0% of its GDP on foreign aid and development. (The current global target is 0.7% of GDP.) The U.S. currently spends 0.19% of its GDP on foreign aid. (Despite the perception that the US spends 25 to 30% of the federal budget on foreign aid, it spends about 2%.) We could even do it with business friendly tactics like direct aid, small business loans, and venture capital support. But the U.S. would rather spend a billion dollars on war funding than getting people out of poverty.

Or Leading the World on Climate Change

If you’ve been reading/following any of the Economist’s year ahead coverage, you know that later this year the world’s leaders are meeting in Paris for a summit on climate change. While the U.S. and China have taken a step on the path to confronting climate change by agreeing to terms, the U.S. could do even more by helping developing countries confront climate change. Financially, developing countries face a tougher burden developing green energy; strategically, this is the best way to stop carbon pollution.

Again, this would require hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars, and it would require the Senate to ratify a treaty (more on that next week), but it is a real option. And it is possibly much more dangerous than ISIS.

Fighting Ebola

Finally, let’s close with a way we could have really helped people last year. What if I told you that Ebola could have been stopped before it became an epidemic. You would probably say, “Well, yeah, I read about that in the The New York Times, how poor communication led to an epidemic.”

And you’d be right.

Frankly, America has some of the best health care professionals in the world. If we had an extra billion dollars to spend on helping people abroad, I wish we’d spent much more, much sooner in Africa. Perhaps we could have tracked the spread of the disease more effectively, preventing the tragic lack of communication that led to the deaths of tens of thousands. We would have actually saved lives, built up good will, and come across as a nation interested in helping people.

When ISIS started taking territory in Iraq, America--with an assist from the media--became afraid of two things. The first was that ISIS would start launching Al Qaeda style attacks against the US, which Michael C debunked yesterday. The second was that…

ISIS IS ABOUT TO TAKE BAGHDAD!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately, ISIS has been about to take Baghdad for over half a year now...

To be fair, ISIS “threatened” Baghdad mainly in June and October. But this collection is only a partial list. I only started collecting headlines like this after ISIS threatened Baghdad the second time, and I thought, “They haven’t taken Baghdad yet? They’ve been threatening them since June.” More important than that question is this one:

Can ISIS even take Baghdad?

Now, I’m no military expert--that’s Michael C’s area of expertise--but from my layman’s point of view, one thought stands out: Baghdad is majority Shia. True, finding accurate numbers on the actual demographic breakdown is not easy. But according to Newsweek and Joel Wing’s excellent Musings on Iraq--which cites the CIA fact book--Baghdad is 70 to 80% Shia. Secondly, the Shia majority has some very powerful militias ready at their disposal, as America learned the hard way.

“If all the actions of the Islamic State, or IS, to date weren’t sufficiently reprehensible, this act and the potential for other similar acts will snap American attention with laser-like focus onto the real danger IS poses to the existence of Iraq, the order of the region and to the homelands of Europe and America.”

To make sure his readers understand the severity, he continues, “Make no mistake, the abomination of IS is a clear and present danger to the U.S.” Remarkably, General Allen provides almost no evidence to prove this point.

I’m not picking on just General Allen; no one in the Obama administration, including the President himself, or congressmen advocating for war, ever provided evidence that ISIS posed a threat to the US beyond “Trust us.” A perfect example is this USA Today article with the provocative headline, “Islamic State biggest threat since 9/11, sources say”. Again, beyond “sources”, it didn’t have any evidence.

Since I can’t debunk every media article, I want to use General Allen’s op-ed as a case study in how to over-hype the threat of terrorists. So what evidence did Gen. Allen bring to bear? Here’s a list after reading and re-reading his op-ed:

- The Islamic State wants to establish a Caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

- There are foreign fighters in their ranks.

- They are a well-organized insurgent group.

- They have money and weapons.

- They beheaded one American journalist. (And since more.)

- Al Qaeda used Taliban support in Afghanistan.

- Finally, this vague sentence: “The leadership of the so-called Caliphate has been clear that it will focus on Western and American targets if given the chance...”

So all those factors point to a group that could and is threatening the current state of Iraq. At least they have a significant chance to carve out a chunk of territory for their own. The problem is many of those “facts” don’t lead to ISIS being a threat to America’s homeland, as General Allen claimed.

Take the first and last bullet points; they’re contradictory. If ISIS wants to establish a Caliphate, the worst thing it could do would be to provoke US, UK and European nations into re-invading Iraq. That would set back its plans years, decades or end them all together. (Ask the Taliban how it worked out for them.)

To top it off, this dire and immediate threat to the US finished the year by completely dropping out of the news almost altogether, except for articles about how ISIS ended the year stalled out.

(Oh, and using the evidence that because Al Qaeda was harbored by the Taliban that ISIS will surely harbor international terrorists isn’t evidence.)

Yes, ISIS committed a war crime when it executed a journalist in Iraq. Yes, ISIS is bad for the Middle East and civil wars are bad for the world. However, given that it is against their interests to attack the US, we don’t know how many troops they have in the first place, they don’t have a terrorist arm, it is probably reasonable to conclude they won’t attack the U.S. homeland.

If politicians really want to make the case for action against ISIS, they can, but they shouldn’t hype a terror threat on our homeland.

In one of our first posts, Eric C made a bold prediction. In “The Obama Blame Game Part 2”, he wrote that, “Since 2003 all terrorist roads lead through Iraq.” He predicted that, in the future, terrorists would be inspired by Iraq, trained in warfare in Iraq, and even funded/organized in Iraq. In short, invading Iraq would have more to do with promoting extremism than it did in stopping it.

Like other predictions we have made, Eric went from being wrong to right. Terrorism didn’t “go through Iraq”, as a succession of lone wolf, would-be jihadists--the failed Times Square bombing or the failed underwear bombing or the failed cargo plane attacks--had their origins in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, respectively. The Boston Marathon bombing had its origins with Muslim Chechens.

(Eric C clung to his point that, borne out by each of the above plots, the U.S. invasion of Iraq still inspired many, most or all of the would-be jihadists.)

Then came ISIS. When the Islamic State of Iraq/Syria/Levant beheaded Western journalists, it seemed to finally vindicate Eric C. And when they invaded Iraq, the Washington national security establishment jumped on board with Eric C’s thesis: ISIS (formerly the scary Al Qaeda in Iraq) is the new boogeyman of the moment. These national security types believe that if we don’t get involved in Iraq again, we will be attacked on our own homeland (though many were the same who advocated for invading Iraq the first time).

In just the above four paragraphs, we’ve related Iraq to international terrorism, counter-insurgency, extremism, failed predictions, American politics, the failure of the Army, a “Getting Orwellian” topic, and we’ve only just started scratching the surface. Iraq, one of the reasons Michael C joined ROTC, one of the places he deployed (at the very end), one of the inspirations for this blog, is back in the news because its civil war (unsurprisingly) re-ignited. And that civil war involved the beheading of a US journalist that caused the country to believe ISIS was the most dangerous organization in the world. And that fear, in part, helped swing the balance of power in Washington in an election year.

So we have our “On V Most Thought Provoking Event of 2014”, though not without some controversy, which we debated yesterday.

Of course, the thoughts this war inspired are legion. Expect a good bit of debunking, controversial opinions, and unmentioned ideas.

In short, as a nation, still haven’t learned the lessons of the last decade.

But what if you prefer reading and avoiding the mainstream media? How will you ever find books about the Navy SEALs? You won’t. The SEALs are just too damn secretive.

Unless, of course, the Navy grants access to a photographer. Take this contradictory passage from an article by NBC News. The article opens with the lines, “Since the U.S. Navy began its special Sea, Air, Land Teams, commonly known as the U.S. Navy SEALs, in 1962, little about them has been made public. That was on purpose.” Then a few paragraphs later...

“Mathieson has spent the last six years photographing and researching the SEALs. He recently published a definitive book on the SEALS with David Gatley titled, United States Naval Special Warfare/U.S. Navy SEALs. This is not an outsider’s peek inside the SEALs. Rather, Mathieson was given unique access to the inner workings of the secretive group because the Navy blessed his project.”

When I joined the Army, like most impressionable young cadets, I dreamed Special Operations dreams. The Army path to becoming a modern John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando) roughly follows: 1. Branch Infantry. 2. Get my airborne wings. 3. Graduate from Ranger School. 4. Become an Army Ranger. 5. Join the Special Forces. 6. Go to Delta Force. 7. Go to the even more secretive Intelligence Support Activity.

Of course, as a nerd, I dreamed of doing intelligence work for Delta. (Or, as they’re called now, the Combat Applications Group (CAG).) The farthest I got was doing intelligence for 5th Special Forces Group. By the time I left the Army to pursue my MBA, the allure of CAG had worn off.

But it wasn’t just me who didn’t care about CAG/Delta; Americans don’t really carry either. America now loves its SEALs. Kick-started by SEAL Team 6’s assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound, the SEAL legend has morphed from puppy love into full-blown stalker obsession. The Navy SEAL’s emphasis on secrecy only fuels this passion. Oh, the Navy SEALs, America’s quiet professionals, they don’t brag, they keep to themselves, they don’t do interviews and they shun media coverage.

Except when they don’t.

Though they are “quiet professionals”, they make quite a bit of noise. (Find examples of SEALs or SEAL supporters boasting about their “quiet professionalism” here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.) While the last movie about Delta Force came out in the 80s (Fine, The Unit was probably Delta Force), Navy SEALs have filled American airwaves with their stories, silently and quietly in the news constantly since 2010.

On cable television alone, we have seen...

- The Military Channel cover SEALs 24/7. In a post last year, Eric C looked at the schedule for The Military Channel. That night, their schedule included the TV programs “Weaponology: Sniper Rifles”, “Weaponology: Navy SEALs”, “Secrets of Navy SEALs” and “Secrets of SEAL Team 6”. Notice a trend?

SEALs are even more prominent on the big screen. Though Hollywood made Navy SEALs in 1990, they hadn’t made a movie featuring these quiet professionals...until the Osama bin Laden raid. (SEALs made guest spots in Tears of the Sun (which no one saw) and Transformers (which also had Rangers).) Now our “quiet professionals” have starred in Act of Valor and Zero Dark Thirty two years ago, Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips last year, and Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor this year. And Clint Eastwood’s upcoming American Sniper comes out next year.

Sociologists point to a number of factors to explain the decrease: harsher sentencing guidelines, stricter penalties for lesser crimes, demographics, gun control laws, and even abortion or lead paint. Because of the complicated subject matter, we’ll probably never be able to link the decline to one specific cause.

Some of the credit, as well, must go to the police forces across America. Solving and preventing crimes has to have some effect. If the police helped lower the crime rate, American politicians could argue the American people got a good return on their investment.

Of course, not all police funding is created equal. Following 9/11, in an effort to defeat Al Qaeda, police departments across America purchased gobs of vehicles, weapons and gear under the guise of “counter-terrorism protection”, including up-armored vehicles, automatic weapons, CCTV cameras and basically anything they wanted. Some of this counter-terrorism spending might have had the unintended consequence of helping police fight ordinary, non-terrorist crime.

But a lot of it probably did nothing except waste money. For example, the NYPD’s Intelligence Unit, and their controversial, “Demographics” unit, which made the news last year in two different investigativereports. Today, I want to run the numbers to see the opportunity costs--in other words, other ways we could have spent the money that might have been effective--for the NYPD Demographics Unit.

First, let’s understand the scale of the organization. According to the AP, the NYPD Intelligence Unit had a budget of $62 million in 2012, of which the Demographics Unit was a major part. It also doesn’t get audited by the New York City Comptroller Office. Apparently, the NYPD Intelligence Unit operates in eleven foreign cities, and countless geographies within the U.S. outside of New York City.

This means that the NYPD Demographics Unit saved--at the upper bounds of unrealistic optimism--potentially 700 citizens, or 32,000 life years (life years is the expected number of years a citizen is expected to live; or average life expectancy minus current age; I’ve estimated forty years per victim) in terror attacks since 9/11. For this analysis--this is what I mean by benefit of the doubt--we are going to assume the NYPD Demographics Unit helped avert every single terror attack.

Knowing that the NYPD Intelligence Unit had a budget of $62 million, and estimating that the demographics unit is only about half of that budget--a guess on my part--by my calculations, New York City has spent roughly $300 million on the Demographics unit alone since 9/11. If the unit saved 700 people as I calculated, that means it spent roughly $400,000 per life saved, or $10,000 per life year saved.

So what are the opportunity costs of the NYPD Demographics Unit? Well, the time of the officers serving and the costs to run its operations. Even though the NYPD has fantastic resources, it still has limits. So what if, instead of establishing the Demographics Unit, the NYPD focused on discouraging open air drug markets, establishing community policing programs, and conducting increased gang intervention? What if the NYPD focused on organized crime or financial wrong doing? What if they had simply put more cops on the street to go on patrol? Those different uses of men and money are the foregone opportunity costs of setting up the NYPD Demographics Unit.

The biggest opportunity is clearly preventing homicides. Since 9/11, New York City has seen 6,500 murders. Imagine if, instead of combating the relatively rare phenomenon of terrorism, New York City had plowed that $300 million into solving and preventing murders. If New York had prevented about 12% of all the murders since 9/11, then it shouldn’t have spent the money on counter-terrorism.

Or imagine if New York City plowed that $300 million into true rehabilitation efforts. One of the sad facts of American “justice” is that recidivism--committing a crime after you’ve already been convicted and released--is extraordinarily high, at 67%. Why? Most Americans shun the Christian virtue of forgiveness and refuse to hire or support criminals who have paid their debt to society. Imagine if that $300 million had gone into supporting and helping lower the recidivism rate in New York City, through training and job aid programs. You might actually save money...

Many of the cases the NYPD cited above never even approached feasibility. For instance, one terrorist wanted to cut the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. How he planned to attach enough explosives without attracting attention is unclear. Indeed, the likelihood he would have even made it to the bridge is doubtful.

So the break-even isn’t 12% of murders prevented...its simply saving one. If the NYPD could have saved even one additional life by not having the Intelligence Unit, than it would have been better to spend the money on stopping crime. That’s right, all that money and time spent on the demographics unit is almost completely wasted.

On Violence is a blog on counter-insurgency warfare, military and foreign affairs, art, and violence, written by two brothers--one a veteran and the other a pacifist.

The work of On Violence has appeared in The Washington Post, Stars and Stripes, The Small Wars Journal, The New York Times’ "At War" blog, The Los Angeles Times’ Blowback feature, FP.com and Thomas Ricks’ “The Best Defense” blog, Infantry Magazine, and Doonesbury’s “The Sandbox”.

Upcoming Articles

Guest Post: Starting Wars is Easy: The Difficult Completion of War
The (Opportunity) Costs of ANOTHER War with Iraq
Waiting For ISIS or: The Islamic State is about to Take Baghdad!
Future ISIS Terrorist Attacks and Beach Front Property in Arizona
On V's Most Thought-Provoking Event of 2015: Iraq Redux
The Loudest "Quiet Professionals" Start Screaming: News Coverage
The Loudest "Quiet Professionals" Start Screaming: Hollywood Edition
How the NYPD Became the CIA: The (Opportunity) Costs of Security